In a paper published in Plos One, researchers from Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands suggest that the Dead Sea Scrolls are older than originally thought. In fact, some may be dated back to the time they were originally written.

The group came to this conclusion by using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the documents, Premier Christian News reports.

The AI program was named Enoch after one of the Bible’s oldest patriarchs. It analyzed the different handwriting styles and patterns of 30 selected manuscripts.

Additionally, the researchers used radiocarbon to re-date the selected texts. But first they removed the castor oil that had been applied when they were discovered in the 1940s and 1950s to preserve the documents. There were concerns that this oil affected the dating.

Earlier studies determined that the documents ranged in date from the third century BC to the first century AD. However, the new analysis suggests that many are at least a generation or more older.

They also found in two instances that fragments from the Daniel and Ecclesiastes were dated to the time they were originally written.

The researchers also found that the AI program was quite accurate. About 85% of the time, Enoch dated the documents to the same period provided by the new radiocarbon dating. Enoch also provided more precise dates.

The bulk of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 11 Qumran Caves located in the West Bank, Palestine between 1947 and 1956. New fragments have been discovered as recently as 2021.

Approximately 15,000 remains have been found ranging from fragments to nearly full manuscripts. About 40% of the finds involve the Hebrew Old Testament scriptures including a nearly full copy of Isaiah.

The remaining 60% involve non-Biblical texts. Half of which are from apocryphal books including Enoch, the book of Tobit and Wisdom. The remaining are from unknown religious text and as well letters and other documents.

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments from every Old Testament book except for the Book of Esther.

A dozen were even written in ancient paleo-Hebrew script dated to the First Temple period around 970 BC.

The Dead Sea Scrolls also revealed the accuracy our modern Bible versions as the texts show that the manuscripts were recopied over the centuries with considerable care.

According to the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, the accuracy “is quite remarkable, considering that the Qumran Scrolls are over a thousand years older than previously identified biblical manuscripts.”